Letters Home
by The Thunder Alchemist
Summary: The story of a young fire wizard's journey, told through a collection of letters to her family. Takes a look at the darker side of Wizard101. "Wizard City isn't just a part of a battle, it's in a full-out war."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** Hi! This fanfiction takes a look at Ravenwood from a more realistic point of view - if it wasn't just a game. It's told in the form of letters, so the chapters aren't going to be very long. Enjoy!

oOo

Dear Mom and Dad,

I've finally gotten settled in at Ravenwood. I can't believe that it's only been a week! So much has happened since my first day. I'm glad I decided to bring my camera, since I have a ton of pictures to send to you. The picture I have attached is of my dorm room. All that's in there is a bed, a dresser, and a desk. If I want anything else, I have to pay for it out of my own pocket.

The school itself is definitely impressive, though. In the center, there's this humongous, living tree named Bartelby. The 5 schools of magic have classrooms built around his trunk, along with each of the school trees (they talk, too). Balance magic doesn't have its own classroom (I heard that it's located in a different world, though), and the Death school fell out of Ravenwood. Yes, I said fell. When the death professor went insane, the school dropped through the land, leaving only a gaping chasm in its place. I'll send you a picture with my next letter.

I seem to be doing pretty well in my fire magic classes. I can use the first real spell, firecat, already! As for flames themselves, I can't create more than sparks, and I can barely control existing flames. I think Professor Falmea is some kind of fire elemental, because she appears to be on fire and isn't hurt by it at all.

I don't want to worry you, but there's something I should tell you. You know that insane death professor guy I mentioned earlier? Well, he kind of reappeared to fight the headmaster. On my first day. While I was with said headmaster. And we were drove them off, but it definitely wasn't the welcome I had been looking forward to.

I certainly chose a wonderful time to develop magical powers. Wizard City is having problems with the undead. Yes, like ghosts and zombies. The streets infested by them are blocked off, though. The Wizard City guards are making sure that nobody goes in there without the right abilities and permission. Tomorrow, I'll be doing some volunteer work in Unicorn Way, clearing out some ghosts. Don't worry, they aren't too strong. I'll make sure to write with the story about that!

Your daughter,

Brynn.

oOo


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N **Now the real storyline begins!

oOo

2. Dear Mom and Dad,

Apparently, Unicorn Way was a beautiful place before the undead came. There's a lovely park, a dueling arena for wizards, and a fairy-filled hedge maze guarded by this seraph (sort of an angel thing) called Lady Oriel. But I don't get to enjoy any of those. Instead, I spent my afternoon eliminating the ghosts, skeleton pirates, and evil fairies.

We had a group of about 10 people, of relatively low levels in all schools. We also had an older, more experienced supervisor. One of the guys in the group, a life wizard named Ceren, had a hypothesis that the fairies were being corrupted by something. After doing some detective work with him and Lady Oriel, we determined that he was right, and that they were being corrupted by a skeleton named Rattlebones. We managed to defeat him, freeing the fairies. And then we had to spend the rest of the afternoon destroying ghosts.

I learned something interesting about the style of education here at Ravenwood. Apparently, it runs on a "level" system. As student wizards defeat monsters and do quests for others, they gain experience points. Get enough experience, and you level up. The more you level up, the more your powers increase. Sounds kind of like video games, don't you think? I managed to make it to level 5, giving me the title of apprentice pyromancer and a new spell.

I also learned that most of the non-magical denizens of Wizard City are lazy. Why bother doing anything when there are wizards who'll do it for you for the xp? Some of the things they ask you to do are just plain stupid! I'm not going to complete some random girl's science project for her! Adults are supposed to be authority figures who protect and take care of kids, but here in Wizard City, it seems to be the other way around. The Wizard City guards are supposed to defend us, but they're being paid for the work we do.

Your daughter,

Brynn.

oOo


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N **In this chapter, the story starts to earn its "Horror" category.

oOo

Dear Mom and Dad,

Today, Headmaster Ambrose received a call for reinforcements on Triton Avenue. Apparently, there was only one active wizard left there after three were sent in. One was missing in action, one refuses to do anything but laze around, and one is struggling to hold off the waves of undead on her own. Of all the available wizards, the Headmaster chose me over more experienced and qualified ones. It came as a real shock.

The situation on Triton Avenue was bad. Really bad. Undead had destroyed the gate keeping them in the Haunted Cave. Susie Gryphonbane, the wizard in charge, looked like she hadn't slept in a week. She could barely think. If the undead broke through to Olde Town, Wizard City would be under siege. The Four Falls Mill, Wizard City's main power source, was malfunctioning for an unknown reason. Even worse, the undead had somehow learned how to use storm magic! We had to deal with all that and try to locate Susie's missing brother!

I left Susie, who could barely make a coherent thought, to guard the gate to Olde Town, while I tackled the first problem: the kraken. I spoke with the man at the mill, Blad Raveneye, to see what I could do to help. When I tried to bring up the power outage, he just went off about how the undead brought crows that were messing up his garden! The idiot refused to do anything else until I built him a scarecrow to get rid of them. How stupid can you get? There's nearly a siege and all he cares about is his damn vegetable garden! Sorry about the profanity. After constructing the scarecrow, I figured out that this Blad guy wasn't even the foreman, just some lowly mill worker, and that the real foreman was stranded out on a nearby cliff due to a broken teleporter.

I managed to get the teleporter working, and I then spoke to Mr. Sunblade, the mill head. He told me he didn't have a clue why the mill was broken, and that I should go ask the storm school professor. If you're in charge of the main power source of Wizard City, you should be able to know how it works! I didn't want to leave Susie, but she insisted I get the mill back up and running. Professor Balestrom (who also didn't know what the exact problem was) suggested I summon a kraken to take storm energy from it.

I'm not entirely sure what a kraken is or how you take storm energy from one, but that sounds a lot like animal cruelty. When I brought that up, though, he just told me that it was just a kraken and killing it was no big deal. KILLING A KRAKEN! A LIVING, BREATHING THING! I ran to the headmaster, trying to report Professor Balestrom's animal cruelty, but he just waved it off and said nothing was wrong with it. Then, when I confronted it, it spoke to me. This kraken was obviously intelligent, and I was forced to end its life. This will haunt me for a long time.

Then, it was time for the real problem: the undead invasion. Despite having more than a hundred wizards at his disposal, the headmaster had not sent anybody else to assist. I managed to get Duncan Grimwater, the lazy, useless third wizard, to help thanks to bribery and a bit of blackmail. We got some strange medallions from the undead, and Duncan guessed that they were the source of the storm magic. After we found barrels of drained lumina crystals (crystals that store storm magic), Duncan figured out that there must be somebody else commanding the undead, since they're unable to get the storm magic out themselves. I managed to acquire a charged lumina crystal, and Duncan used some advanced magic to determine that the Harvest Lord (really, who gives themself that name?) was in charge and had Susie's brother, Artur.

That kind of advanced storm magic isn't taught until you're AT LEAST level 40! And Duncan's a death wizard, so he could only get that spell through a secondary school. That would put his level at somewhere around level 60. That ass has been letting us struggle on our own for almost a week (plus more time for when it was just him, Susie, and Artur) when he could have annihalated all the undead within hours!

Duncan decided to make himself scarce after that, though, probably because of the glare I was giving him. I brought the news to Susie, who was relieved. There was only me to go free him, though. I was on my own. I tailed a ghoul to the Harvest Lord's hideout, and began to formulate a plan. I'd planned to just shoot a spell at his back, but he realized I was there. We had a fierce duel, but in the end I came out victorious. I freed Artur, who was locked up at the top of a tower, and we headed back to Susie. All of the undead, sensing the end of their leader, had retreated back to the Haunted Cave. We had saved the street.

The Battle of Triton Avenue, as they're calling it, changed my views on the world. Nothing prepares you for the terror of not knowing if you'll survive the day. It's been giving me nightmares. People call chess a game of war, but it's nothing like the real deal. Chess doesn't allow the enemy to acquire storm magic. Chess doesn't account for a rampaging kraken.

Wizard City isn't just a part of a battle, it's in a full-out war.

Your daughter,

Brynn.

oOo


	4. Chapter 4

Dear Mom and Dad,

I really appreciate your attempt to withdraw me from Ravenwood, as futile as it is. The Headmaster called me into his office to discuss your letter a few hours before I wrote this. Apparently, all active wizards of the Ravenwood community, students and alumni, have been called to Wizard City. Nobody, student or adult, is allowed to leave, but he says you can withdraw me after this is all over if you still want to. I'm not sure I want to be a part of a school that has control of anybody who ever attended. For example, if there was another war when I was, say, 40 and living back on Earth with a job and kids, I certainly wouldn't want to abandon my life to come and fight.

In other news, while walking through the shopping district of Wizard City, I came across a deserted Mastery Amulet. I would have put up a notice asking for the owner to come claim one, but I'd probably get some random person since those amulets are so expensive. They're really rare, and cost around 10,000 crowns (I looked up the crowns to USD conversion rate, and that's about $1,000). Today's certainly a lucky day! A Mastery Amulet allows its user to use a second school's spells as if it's the user's main school. For reference, it's more difficult learning a secondary school (and later, a tertiary school) than your primary one. Each amulet only works for a specific school, though. The amulet I found was for the Myth school, and I met with Cyrus Drake to discuss my interest in taking Myth classes. I'm going to join in with the normal myth students starting next week.

Somehow, we got to talking about Ravenwood as a whole, and my lamenting about the war and the lack of work done by the guards. Cyrus was sympathetic, and promised to try to find a way to help me out.

As for the war situation, there are now three clear streets. Unicorn Way and Triton Avenue, which you already heard about, along with Cyclops Lane. Professor Drake summoned trolls and the plural form of cyclops (cyclopses?) to drive the undead out of Cyclops Lane. There are rumors about the myth creatures causing some trouble, but nothing has been confirmed.

Your daughter,

Brynn.

oOo

**A/N **I'm moving author notes to the end of chapters, and am changing each of the previous chapters to match. Also, I made a few changes to chapter 3 if you want to take a look.

As for the money conversion rate, here's my explanation. In the games, mastery amulets cost about $10 in crowns. School-themed houses for the same crowns cost can also be bought for 100,000 gold. If Wizard101 was real and the currency exchange rate was the same, then any random wizard could just save up their allowance for two weeks and buy a Mastery Amulet. Also, if 100,000 gold equaled $10, then 1,000 gold (the average cost of mid-level equipment) would be only 10 cents. That's why I made adjustments. To save you the math work, there's a table of conversions below.

Conversions:

10 crowns = 100 gold = 1 dollar.

100 crowns = 1,000 gold = 10 dollars.

1,000 crowns = 10,000 gold = 100 dollars

10,000 crowns = 100,000 gold = 1,000 dollars


End file.
